Augusta, Ga. - In gathering darkness at the Augusta National Golf Club, Adam Scott stood with his head tilted back and both hands raised toward the heavens, allowing the softly falling rain and the moment to wash over him Sunday.

He had just won the 77th Masters with a long putter and a big heart, had just claimed the first green jacket for golf-mad Australia after eight runner-up finishes by hard-luck Aussies.

It was up to countryman Ian Baker-Finch, once a British Open champion and now a CBS golf analyst, to describe the moment. His words were powerful in their brevity.

"From Down Under," Baker-Finch said, "to on top of the world."

Scott, 32, triumphed in a riveting playoff with Angel Cabrera of Argentina. There were no Bubba Watson miracles this time, just superlative golf from two gritty competitors.

On the second extra hole, the 465-yard par-4 10th, Scott watched Cabrera's birdie putt slide just past the hole and then rolled in his own 12-footer to win his first major championship.

On the other side of the world, where Australian golf fans stay up all night to watch the Masters telecast, there were going to be a lot of bleary eyes at work.

"I'm a proud Australian, and I hope this sits really well back at home," Scott said. "It's hard to put it all together in my mind at the moment. It's a real honor. Amazing."

Scott and Cabrera emerged from the inevitable back-nine Sunday scrum after the other contenders made pressure-induced mistakes and faded from relevance, and played the final hole of regulation and the two playoff holes as if their very lives depended on the outcome.

First, Scott rolled in a 25-foot putt on the 72nd hole to shoot a 69 and finish regulation play at 9-under-par 279. His ball went in on the low side, and Scott momentarily thought he'd won the tournament.

"Come on Aussies!" he screamed.

But Cabrera, ranked 269th in the world but a streaky player and fearless competitor whose only two victories in America were majors - the 2007 U.S. Open and the 2009 Masters - was standing back in the fairway, needing a birdie to tie.

"El Pato" delivered in electrifying fashion, striding up the fairway while his approach shot, a 7-iron from 163 yards, was still in the air. His ball landed 2 feet from the hole.

"The only thing in my head," Cabrera said through an interpreter, "was winning."

Two hundred yards up the hill, Scott was checking his scorecard in the clubhouse and saw the shot on TV. He went from thinking he'd won the Masters to mentally preparing for a playoff.

"On 18, for a split second, I let myself think I could have won," Scott said. "But I got to see Angel hit an incredible shot from the scorer's area and then I had to get myself ready to play some more holes."

The sudden-death playoff started on No. 18. Both players split the fairway with their drives but left their approach shots just in front of the green. Cabrera, playing first, nearly chipped in, his ball grazing the right edge.

Scott then chipped to 4 feet and both made their pars.

It was on to No. 10, where Watson's astounding wedge shot from the right trees - also on the second hole of a playoff - helped him clinch the 2012 Masters.

Once again, Scott and Cabrera hit booming drives down the cascading fairway. Cabrera hit a nice approach to about 15 feet and barely missed the birdie putt.

"That's golf," Cabrera said. "Sometimes you make those putts, sometimes you just miss them."

After conferring with caddie Steve Williams, once Tiger Woods' right-hand man, Scott rolled in his winning birdie putt with the long putter he has used since 2011.

"I could hardly see the green in the darkness," Scott said. "I was struggling to read (the putt) so I called Steve over. I said, 'Do you think (it's going to break) more than a cup?'

"He said, 'It's at least two cups. It's going to break more than you think.' I said, 'I'm good with that.' He was my eyes on that putt. He's seen a lot of putts at this golf course."

Cabrera, 43, was trying to become the second-oldest Masters champion and the first grandfather to win the tournament. He had no objection to Scott's method of anchoring the long putter, which the United States Golf Association has proposed banning starting Jan. 1, 2016.

"I don't think there is any advantage," Cabrera said. "If it really is an advantage, why doesn't everybody play it?"

The thrilling finish ended a bizarre Masters in which Woods was retroactively assessed a two-stroke penalty for taking an improper drop in the second round (but not disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard) and 14-year-old amateur Tianlang Guan of China became the youngest-ever Masters competitor - and the first to be slapped with a slow-play penalty.

A dozen golfers had a chance to win starting the final round.

Jason Day, 25, another Australian, holed a bunker shot for an eagle on No. 2 and took the lead at 9-under with birdies on Nos. 13, 14 and 15. But he fell back with bogeys on the next two holes and finished third alone at 281, two shots out of the playoff.

Brandt Snedeker shared the 54-hole lead with Cabrera but struggled to a 75. He gave away the 2008 Masters, too, with a closing 77.

"I'm not as crushed as I was in 2008 because I know I'm going to be there again," Snedeker said. "I'm very disappointed that I didn't win, but I realize that I'm not that far off from winning this thing. I'm going to do it soon."

Woods couldn't conjure up any final-round magic, shot a 70 and tied for fourth with Marc Leishman, yet another Aussie.

The victory was the ninth of Scott's career and he now has the fourth-most wins by an Australian on the PGA Tour, trailing Greg Norman (20), Steve Elkington (10) and Stuart Appleby (10).

But none of them had ever won the Masters. Norman had a great chance in 1996 but blew a seven-shot lead and lost to Nick Faldo.

"(Norman) inspired a nation of golfers, anyone near to my age, older or younger," Scott said. "He was the best player in the world and he was an icon in Australia. Most of us feel that he could have slipped a green jacket on, for sure, and I said part of this is for him because he's given me so much time and inspiration and belief."

New Zealand native Craig Heatley, an Augusta National member and chairman of the media committee, choked up while introducing Scott at the post-round news conference.

"When I heard the roar down on (No.) 10, a second later I heard about 30 million people in Australia and New Zealand cheering as well," Heatley said. "I can't describe the pleasure that it gives me to welcome and congratulate you, Adam, on an awesome performance."

Said Scott, "With that introduction, I don't know how I'm going to manage. What an incredible day."

Incredible, indeed.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oy, oy, oy.

About Gary D'Amato

Gary D'Amato is the Journal Sentinel's sports columnist and also covers golf and the Olympic Games. He is a three-time National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association sportswriter of the year in Wisconsin and has won numerous national writing awards.